The day was beautifully still, and he could almost smell the hot honied
fragrance of the flowers, and hear the angry murmur of the busy flies,
that sate basking on the leaves of the hedgerow. He seemed to himself
to have been full of a vague and restless emotion, a sense of happiness
that just missed its end, that would have been complete if there had
not been something wanting, some satisfaction of an instinct that he
could not put into words. His companion had been a boy of his own age,
who, it had seemed to Hugh, was in the same wistful mood. But there
had been no attempt to express in words any of these thoughts. They
had walked for the most part in silence, interrupted by the vague,
inconsequent, and rather gruff remarks, that are the symbols of equal
friendship. They had rambled a long way beside the stream, with the
thick water-plants growing deep at the edge. The river came brimming
down, clear and cool, the tiny weeds swaying among the dark pools, the
rushes bowing and bending, as though plucked by unseen hands. The
stream was full of boys in boats, and the eager noise and stir was not
congenial to Hugh's meditative mood. The bathing-place was by a weir,
where the green water plunged through the sluices, filling the stream
with foam and sound; all about floated the exquisite reedy smell of
warm river-water, bringing with it a sense of cool and unvisited
places, hidden backwaters among green fields, where the willows leaned
together, and the fish hung mute in the pools. They had bathed under a
tall grove of poplars, and Hugh could remember the delicious freshness
of the turf under his naked feet, and the sun-warmed heat of the wooden
beams of the wharf. The plunge in the cold bubbling water had swept
all his thoughts away into the mere joy of life, but as he sat, after
dressing, with the music of the water in his ears, the same wistful
mood had settled down on his mind.

What did it all mean? Whither was all this beauty, this delight
tending? He thought of all the generations of boys who had bathed in
this place, full of joy and life. Where were they all now? He thought
of those who should come after, when he too was gone to take his place
in the world. And then they had gone slowly back through the meadows,
with a delicious languor of sensation; the sun was now beginning to
decline, and the blue wooded hills across the stream, with the smoke
going up beneath them from unseen houses, wore the same